Quite, this issue is one which flies in the face of medical science day in day out. I am not familiar with the theories given to explain it. Personally I see the presence of belief in the situation in which it's working is observed to be decisive. Also the rituals associated with seeking and receiving medical and health care.

So it's about belief and ritual, which requires the presence of beings to do the believing and acting out the rituals.

I do consider that a p-zombie could benefit from a placebo, although somehow I doubt that there would be any placebo's found in a zombie world, not least perhaps a sense of humour either.

Well, the placebo effect is just plain open evidence that certain beliefs can alter behavior. Whether there some immaterial force or entity inducing these brain states to arise is beyond me.

Yes, I wouldn't limit it to behaviour though, its more physiological, I think. A person follows a behaviour pattern determined by their personality, which includes their mind states. A placebo does something which effects physiological, or metabolic processes in the body, irrespective of the action of the personality and it seems belief has something to do with this.

Nice painting, I like the way you've caught the light (I'm jealous of your climate).

Nice

Well, one thing a p-zombie can do, is totally suck the meaning out of any philosophical dialogue.

Yes it might be a bit dry.
I don't think any of the arguments against the p-zombie argument hold any water. Because an independent zombie universe might be identical to this one in every way. Except it would be absent spirit, I don't think it would necessarily be absent mind. Although I realise this leaves us with a discussion of what mind is. I do consider synthetic minds.

Yes placebo is problematic for materialists and physicalists. However I don't see how it can be conclusive in any way. The problems facing materialists and likewise idealists are more fundamental, ontological and can't be swayed by the empirical evidence. This is because the ontological difference would be the ground upon which the particular ontology is built, so in the absence of a knowledge of our actual ontology, or the alternative, we are entirely in the dark.

P-zombies have unconscious mental (brain) processing, so they may have something performing the same function as belief going on in the brain(like a sticky thread).

Yes and combined with overpopulation and the problems of hygiene in densely populated areas. Combine this with capitalist exploitation of resources and populations by corporations and a major epidemic in one of more of these places is only a matter of time.

It won't weaken the species though, just reduce its size to a more manageable size.

What will weaken the species though is environmental pollution, indicated by the marked increase in allergies and dementia.

How can I know that you are my God?

I don't mean to denigrate simple, pure, morally good folk, but they are not going to lead us through this troubling time.

I meant morally good, not good as opposed to evil.

Regarding The Lord of the Rings, the ring is an interesting thing, whoever posses it is compromised. Golem, my favourite character, is a good example.

So the world has to re-calibrate its expectations as to what constitutes a good and meaningful life. Endless consumption and meaningless entertainment is not it. But unfortunately the '1%' who are to all intents driving the process, are probably not going to concur.

Yes, I see two issues here, firstly where we should go from here, so as you say recalibrate, aiming for a good and meaningful life. Spirituality would indicate (in a knutshell) that this would be some kind of stable sustainable civilisation acting as a custodian of the biosphere.

Secondly, (and I think this is the difficult nut to crack) we as a people need to control ourselves as a civilisation and move forward as a coherent whole. It is easy to conclude that we need to mitigate for climate change, help the poor and impoverished, deal with the political problems around the world, develop and strengthen the United Nations etc etc. But putting this into practice is a monumental struggle, while there are people and groups of people who have other less constructive goals, which they are pursuing.

As I see it, we are at a crisis point, in which there are vast power structures metaphorically swaying around in the wind, occasionally clashing during a storm. Which could come crashing down like a house of cards. There is the repeated rising of confrontational and destructive human behaviour within every sphere of life, including religions. Are we at a tipping point? A point where either the vast weight of efforts of the constructive people finally manage to establish stability and constructive collaborations and civilisation settles down*. Or are we at a point where these civil wars continue to spread, economic collapse and a return to another dark age.

*not to mention the problems of over population and exploitation of resources, human want, etc.

I agree with your observation about the development of a moral evolution. I think that amongst the intelligentsia, that would include most posters on this forum, people have achieved a level of morality suitable for us to go forward with confidence. Unfortunately this group is a minority. I do think there are more, by far, good people in the world. But the not so good people do seem to create havoc and often get into positions of power etc. Also there is the socio economic, consumerist world we are accustomed to.
I appreciate your view of mysticism, I think that it's place is amongst a periphery of people who are suited to contemplation. A world of Mystics would, I think, look a bit like Lord of the Rings, so that is not a way forward.

Getting back to my question, where is humanity likely to be in say a hundred years, or five hundred years and with our intelligence, where should we be at those points?

I agree on the whole with your position here and everyone who has contributed has made good and interesting points, which help to set out our current position/predicament.
My question to you and the other contributors is where are we headed?
Also where should we head?

Spirituality, as far as I understand it answers these questions, the non-spiritual philosophies don't appear to address them, or where they do, it sounds fanciful.

I don't know where you got the 33%, or 1 in 3 from? But as I said before it is a binary choice, hence 50/50.

This is because there can only be two alternative scenarios in the God question. Either our existence was created(scenario a), or it wasn't(scenario b). Any other explanation you can come up with falls under either scenario a, or b. hence we are left with a binary choice.

I would suggest that it is important to bare in mind that the current accepted academic interpretation of the history and development of art is itself a "period" in art history, with its own cultural perspective, amongst other periods.

I do think though that the great and rapid development of teaching, research and information exchange over the last two or three hundred years is unprecedented and is resulting in a layering of periods, rather than the gradual degeneration of periods, which are then largely lost, as happened in the Past, pre-Renaissance periods.

This development is I think resulting in a pervasive perspective in which all art from before this period is relatively primitive, archaic, emblematic of the crude artifice resulting from the gradual emergence of modern man from the primordial soup. The implication being that our current perspective is the enlightened truth, that we have arrived at a mature aesthetic.

However this is in conflict with the view that our current aesthetic is degenerate in reference to the classical ideal. A charge which has some weight, although it cannot be denied that there are some artists (across the whole spectrum of the arts) who are scaling such heights as the classical artists. The difficulty in determining the reality of the situation is that movements in art are not usually recognised until many years later when see from the distance of a later age. So in a real sense we are blind to the characteristics of the present movement/period and it's relevance and importance in the historical record.

But, becoming animal cannot be an excuse for leaving ethics and moral considerations behind, and this is a very fine and subtle line to walk; and easily misunderstood, I think.

Yes, there is I think, in the human stage in evolution, an opportunity/necessity for responsible action. The biosphere has brought us to this point, with agency and intelligence, now it is our turn to act constructively and become custodians of the biosphere and secure its survival and development.

Also within the personal development of the individual there is a crisis of maturity, in which through experience the individual becomes a mature adult, with moral and ethical principles.

Thanks for the links to the books, they do look interesting. I do already speak meow and have a close affinity with and do commune(icate) with mammals and birds in particular. My perspective tends to be a spiritual esoteric one, in which I am contemplating the spirit of the animals and plants and regarding them as members divine spiritual kingdoms.

It's one of my takes on it. What it means in the bible is I think uncertain and in reference to the being and nature of God. Something I wouldn't profess to understand.

Many mansions, I have heard. Don't know what's said in them, though.

The mansions could be the seen as the kingdoms of nature. So the kingdoms present in our world are accessible to us via communion.

Thirdly, there is the God of the mystics; the God of intellectual intuition and/or mystical experience. Here it is a matter of direct experience or knowing, and not of belief. But the interesting thing here is that what is intellectually intuited or directly mystically known is not pure; it is culturally mediated. Here it is not so much a matter of belief, but of culture, as to how intuitions and experiences are interpreted. And this kind of intuition and experience can exist outside the context of theism, as it does, for example in Buddhism, and forms of Shamanism.

I agree with your point here, but with the nuance, which you do point out in a later post, that it is not the experience itself which is mediated, but rather the means of grasping it intellectually, mentally, even intuitively, in a way which is meaningful to the person of the mystic*.

I would point out though, which is probably covered by your use of the word Shamanism, that the contextual mediation does not have to be human in nature, but can be via another kingdom of nature, some other living arena within the biosphere. This is an important avenue for me, in which I commune with animals and plants, an approach which makes it easier to step outside the psychological baggage of humanity. For example in the life of St Francis.

* I am specifically referring here to the personality of the mystic, as a distinct aspect of the self. It is the mediated self, which is socially and culturally conditioned and itself acts as mediator between the mind and the being.

For me in my mystical practice I make a clear and important distinction between the different aspects of the self and work with and between(including their synthesis) them.

There is the soul, the mind, the personality, the being and the body. These are all distinct constituent parts of the self, with a presence within their own sphere of experience and dwelling.

Yes, I am with you and the Buddha and your agnosticism. It was only when I started posting on these western orientated sites that I began getting involved with all this God business again. God had become an irrelevance for me.

This is true if "man was made in the image of God'. But then if the image of the human is the image of God, then in a symmetrical sense the image of God is the image of the human. And if the world is the expression of God, and God is the image of the human, the world is also human-shaped. In Heidegger's quite different sense the world is human-shaped, because without the human there is no world (animals are "world-poor" according to Heidegger). At the very least we might feel justified in saying that the world appears in its most comprehensive expression in human experience.

Yes agreed. This reminds me of a thought technique which I use on ocassion. I don't know if there is a word for it. But, simply, I take two positions, such as Humans are God shaped and God is human shaped, which can be in opposition and bang them together until they become one, a kind of synthesis. Simply by adding the thought that there can be nothing which is not God shaped, because everything that there is was made by God, using bits of God, there is nothing else of which to make anything. So God and humans are one and the same, it is only something about our predicament which results in us not knowing this and knowing God.

Spinoza's view of God is like the Buddhist vision, non-teleological; in both there is no ultimate overarching purpose; no culmination in an "end of days" or "end of history". I think what you suggest about the human imagination is on the right track. Even Spinoza, for all his rationalism, allows that the human imagination can "feign" in order to gain a richer understanding. Fiction has a profoundly important place in human life. There can be no rigid demarcation between human faculties.

Yes, I can see a non-teleological perspective, with teleological realities on the smaller scale within the cosmos. But then one is confronted with the idea that scale becomes meaningless when talking of the cosmos. So God can then be on the small scale, local, in a much bigger scale, so we are back where we started, the end of days is only a local event.

Yes I agree about fiction. An example I use is regarding belief in magic, if everyone believes in it, it will happen. I have heard opinions that in ancient India, when it was fully accepted and believed that magic was real. That it did happen and was a part of life. Indeed, I suspect it does still happen, in places where the tradition is still alive. I think I have been a witness to such things myself.

Do your ears not hear what your mouth has spoken? You say you don't believe in God but then straight away add that you can't imagine what a world without God looks like. (Hint - think communist Russia.)

Ha ha.

Actually I was thinking of the cosmogenesis when there is no God. Is it turtles all the way down? It appears to be entirely without foundation. If there is no God, where is meaning, is everything meaningless, purposeless?

At least when I think of a cosmogenesis with God it is all explained and makes perfect sense.

Yes and people differ in opinion on that. The end result? Theism for those who think god is useful and atheism for those who think otherwise.

This is over simplistic. I think a God is useful, but I don't believe in God. Although perhaps I think God is useful as opposed to the alternative, no God. For I don't know what a world with no God looks like.

Perhaps humans are God shaped, so a religious person is realising this as Wayfarer suggests.

Also if God exists there is a purpose and goal towards which people are moving(as opposed to Nietzsche's vision of the death of God). If God doesn't exist that same purpose and goal is going to be constructive anyway and will result in a better life for people (and the biosphere) in the future. Although people will cease to exist upon death (perhaps), they will have had a constructive enjoyable experience before they die.

I wonder - would there be anyone here who doesn't believe in God, yet want one to exist? Or vice versa?

I am that person, I don't believe in God, but if it were in my gift I would have a God.

More precisely, enable people to be aware when they are committing sin. Cut out the middle man. Remember God (via the Christ) will forgive you when you sin, so why worry. By not committing sin people were guaranteeing an entry into heaven, otherwise they can't be certain what will happen when they arrive at the pearly gates.

I can't answer your pole because I regard my whimsical want to be irrelevant. Also God is far to undefined and limited by any pronouncement. Also I am of the opinion that the omni's are a nonsense dreamed up by medieval theologians.

The reason why my whimsical want is irrelevant is that I am in a position of ignorance, ignorance of the form a universe with, or a universe without a God would take, etc etc. Also any choice someone makes in this pole is likely to on irrelevant, or naive premises.

Regarding philosophy, the existence of God is perhaps given to much weight due to the historical link between philosophy and theology. This is not because there is in some way less likelihood that a God exists than is suggested in philosophy, but rather in the accepted and engrained conceptual framework of a Christian God.

Personally I follow a mystical approach to philosophy, in which the existence of God is irrelevant. Although I suppose I would say on balance that I do regard that there is a spiritual reality with beings equating to gods present. But even here this is irrelevant for me as I am concerned with practice, service and living a fulling life in the world.

Its a crisis if the philosopher seeks to look beyond the conceptual schemas. Short of asking an advanced alien, or a god what it's like, how are we to know?

But is this really the case? Let's consider a couple of examples. The ancient Hebrew cosmological schema was the following:

Jewish-Universe2.jpg

This reminds me of the Truman Show.

In the Truman Show the world is artificial and is provided and directed by a hidden controller. Also the purpose behind this world is in the mind of that controller. In this scenario Harry Truman has no idea of the reality of his world, or the purposes behind its existence. However near the end of the film he finds the door in the sky, exits the set, meets his controller and is given the purpose of his world and its reality is explained to him.

This idea has also been developed by other thinkers and philosophers throughout history, here is another example.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flammarion.jpg

Perhaps there is some truth in this, pertinent to your question, a truth that we can step out of our conceptual world by meeting our controller(maker), being told of the purposes and reality of our world. But until we are told, we are blind to it.

It would seem then that conceptual schemas are fluid, and subject to revision or replacement after checking the world.

Perhaps they would change rapidly if a UFO arrived.

TGW would point out that we don't even need to bring science into. Human beings learn conceptual schemas as they grow up, depending on one's culture and education, and change them as needed. We also often don't agree on what concepts are the right ones. You can see this from endless disagreements in philosophy, politics, religion, etc which tend to have their roots in fundamentally different ideas.

Perhaps we can be taught to see the clues to the reality in the world we perceive. Surely the clues are there, were we to posses the eyes to see them.

Yes, very much so. I have found when I'm overly fatigued, or hungover, I start seeng faces in everything, especially textured surfaces, or something with some kind of random patterning.

Nice work.

No, that's how I found it in the internet. It doesn't look edited to me.

Oddly enough, in the arts, my view has always been that modernism did the opposite to your claim; rather, it problematized 'truth'. If you take 'The waste land', Eliot presented a diverse range of voices with no clear overarching 'truth' at all (although later he became a Christian). If you take the novel, Woolf or Joyce or Dos Passos presented us with a plurality of subjective voices as against the Victorian era novel where you always knew what the author would think. If you take painting and sculpture, the Impressionists, Picasso and the Cubists inaugurated devastating assaults on old ways of truth-telling. Take 'The rites of Spring' and Schoenberg...where is the sanctuary of truth in all this?

I have an interest in postmodernism in the arts, also I see a parallel process going on to that which is going on in philosophy.

I would say that postmodernism in the arts has had to find/establish/invent its own foundations/feet. This is a reaction to the crisis of identity brought about by the breaking of the foundational mould by modernism. It was left realing for a number of decades with a nebulous expression of personal reactions to this crisis of identity. In the visual arts there was an acute degeneration into shite, quite literally with Chris Offili's Turner Prize winning piece. Other fields in the arts went in various and interesting directions.

The result of all this is that art is now becoming creatively diverse with individual artists following their own personal path of creativity, free of subjective restraints. There doesn't appear to be a new grand movement coalescing at the moment. But there are many interesting developments, or movements on the small scale.

As to the value(read truth) in art these days, there are no rules anymore. A favourite quote of mine is what Grayson Perry said about the value of art. He called it the skip test. Put your work in a skip and see how long it is before someone walks off with it. If it doesn't leave the skip, it has no value and may not be art.

The regret was that I had missed an opportunity due to my own failings. I agree with what you say about the foolishness of youth and don't blame my younger self for my behaviour back then. This regret was linked to a deeper feeling and experience of social inadequacy throughout my life.
Anyway, I mentioned this example of an experience to illustrate an experience of an emotional breaking or opening of the heart. Which seemed to me to be deeper than what I would expect in the life of a being in my position. Or in my humility I would never have expected, or imagined that such a thing would happen to to me, a person who lives a peaceful emotionally stable and humble life. The recollection of events 23 years ago was I presume the event in my past which my consciousness found appropriate for the experience to become anchored in my lived experience and was not important in the experience, but rather a way my mind found to understood what was happening.

It is this which started me thinking about a universal, or deeper love than what we normally experience in the world.

Do you agree, in particular, with the distinction I made between one respect in which love is "in experience", and another respect in which love is "outside experience" in the bodies of the animals who love?

I agree that all animals love and that it is known and felt in experience, perhaps in humans, the kind of love is more self aware than in animals. Also that love can be in respect of external facts, things.

I understand what you are saying about instances of love as facts, but this is not something which I view as important. For me love is a personal experience of sentiment, something which through repetition becomes an established predisposition, or bond within the person.

My view is that it has a "real existence", in the bodies of those sentient animals and in the experience of those sentient animals.

Yes, but I am asking if there is a greater love of which we and our experiences of love are pale reflections? This was spurred by a personal experience I had in which I sensed/intuited such a thing.

I suppose on my view, love is as concrete as physical matter. Or, a particular instance of love is as concrete as a particular instance of physical matter. But I see no reason to suppose that love is "fundamental", in the sense that it is a basic feature of anything said to exist. Tables and chairs, sunbeams and raindrops.

But I do have reason to suppose this, however my reasons fall within the realms of theology.
Namely that our existence is hosted by beings for whom love is the meat and potatoes of life and creation.

A story like the one you've told about a demiurge: We can imagine it so, and we can imagine it not so. We can imagine countless alternatives like this one, each as consistent with the balance of appearances as any of the others; each as unsupported by the balance of appearances as any of the others. On what grounds would we choose among all those possibilities?

Yes, I agree we have no grounds from which to establish such knowledge of reality. (Well there is revelation etc, but putting that to one side for now). For me establishing the facts of such knowledge is not important, or relevant to me. However I do contemplate intuited forms of which such knowledge may take as an intellectual exercise.

Let me illustrate by analogy, many people say why do depictions of aliens resemble so closely the anatomy of humans. I don't because I see how this might be the case through the processes of evolution and that any alien which travels here from elsewhere in the universe would likely exhibit certain anatomical forms, forms mirroring the forms in human anatomy which enables them to develop the technologies which might one day enable them to travel to other planets. Namely, they would most likely have limbs, so as to be able to move in their environment, hands, or means of grasping and manipulating material. Good eyes, most likely bi-focal, for seeing and intricately manipulating the materials. Mouths for accessing sufficient energy and minerals to sustain a large body. An intelligent brain etc, etc. Ther are many examples of animals on our planet who are highly developed, but who will not develop such technologies because their anatomy is inadequate, dolphins for example.

Well by analogy divine beings hosting us, or of which we are a part are likely to have certain forms of anatomy.

This particular story emphasizes a connection between love and sentience. That's an interesting dimension of our discussion: Can we conceive of love without sentience?

I agree, I consider that there are other forms of love without sentience, but the kind of love we can conceive of is through experience reliant on sentience. This is in line with an idea I have about divinity being universally sentient.

Are the love and sentience of the demiurge, or of the demiurge's "realm of mind", similar to the love and sentience of our animal experience, or how are they different? How do we know the answer to such questions? On what grounds would we support an answer?

I would intuit it by analogy, I observe that the love in an animal is similar to that I experience personally, but less selfaware, integrated, sentient. So presume that the love in a demiurge is more selfaware, integrated and sentient than my own.
For me there is a reality by which I intuit knowledge in, from and through interaction with my environment. This knowledge is refined and sculpted through a creative process guided by intuition, rather like an artist. Whilst on the spiritual path this is my daily bread and along with some other practices enables me to walk forward.

Who was talking about Blavatsky?

Also what does western philosophy say about love again ( Remember you spoke with authority to begin with)?
Apart from a handful of logical extrapolations from a place of ignorance, western philosophy can only comment on observations about human or worldly love. Areas well covered already by biology and anthropology.

What about universal love, the subject of the Op?

Alice Bailey's work is an example of a western interpretation of Hinduism, as such it derives from the eastern philosophical tradition and is inline with my perspective on philosophy.

I don't see how the western philosophical tradition is addressing universal love other than in arriving at some logical positions from the starting point of an emergent(by evolution) intellect blind to the reality it finds itself in. As such western philosophy can't address any reality there may be in existence, because it is a-priori in ignorance.

It is blind to any spiritual reality other than what it has inherited (primarily) from Christianity. You can't address spirituality and therefore any kind of universal love that there might be without deriving from a spiritual, or religious source. So what is your source?

You are talking as though you have some insight on love, what is your source material?

Again your comments regarding my experience are a monologue exposing aspects of your own personality. I am not surprised to read that your are in fact perfect and I am a fool. Feel free to monologue some more.

The two passages were comments made to different posters, so amount to different conversations. My comment to Wayfarer was an observation about humanity and philosophy. My comment to you was about a way of describing a personal experience in a way that may convey a difficult to describe circumstance, to a poster who does appear to have some knowledge of these issues. I only mentioned Alice Bailey as a reference where a definition of the part of my experience, or being that I was referring to can be found. If you don't like the school of thought referenced, just read my meaning as of the soul, rather than the intellect. It's a simple but important distinction. Your summary of love, came across as a description of the intellectual processes involved in self realisation. I was pointing out with an example that it entails other levels of being.

Regarding my "weird shit", you seem to have gone off on some tangent and projected lots of your own ideas onto it. There doesn't seem to be much point in trying to explain it further, other than to point out that your interpretation of the situation is wildly off the mark. That I am not in love with the person mentioned, and there isn't anything tragic going on. Have you not in your youth been a "fool", or regretted the one that got away? Come on be honest now?

Actually the probability is 50/50, or 1in 2. Because we have a binary choice here.